by Paul Torday
“I’ve never had it.”
“Then now’s the moment,” said Ed. “Darling, can you shove them in the Aga, and we’ll all go next door.”
“It nearly wasn’t the moment,” explained Catherine. “Ed only remembered to get them out of the deep freeze about half an hour ago. Then I had to show him how to defrost them in the microwave. Then I had to show him how to peel a potato. Then I had to show him how to open a bag of frozen peas. Now I’ve got to finish making the bread sauce. All this because he told me it was cook’s night off, so he would get our dinner.”
The moment of awkwardness passed and we all laughed, Ed in a slightly abashed way.
Then he said, “Bring your drink, Wilberforce. Darling, we’ll be in the library.”
I followed Ed out of the kitchen and after a few minutes’ traverse of the house we came to a large book-lined room, the rows of books broken at intervals by glass display cases containing various bedraggled-looking stuffed birds. A log fire was burning in a stone hearth and, although it was not a cold night, we wandered towards it and sat on the fender.
“You’ll love grouse,” said Ed enthusiastically, as we sipped our drinks. “Have you never shot them?”
I was surprised that he would think that I ever would have, but then I realised that Ed expected everyone else in the world either to be like him, fishing in Iceland or shooting grouse in the Pennines. Or else he expected them to be like Horace, opening bottles of champagne for other people when required.
“No,” I said. “I never have. I don’t shoot.”
“You don’t shoot? Why ever not?” asked Ed. Then he blushed and said, “I’m so sorry. Perhaps you’re one of those anti-what-do-you-call-‘ems. Quite all right with me if you are. Nothing against racing, I hope?”
“I’m not anti-anything, as far as I know,” I told him. “It’s just that I’ve never done it.”
“Oh dear,” said Ed. He looked chastened, as if I had told him I was sickening for something. Then he brightened up. “Well, there must be something you like doing. Do you ride? Do you fish? You can’t spend your entire time with computers, I suppose?”
“I don’t do anything like that,” I said. “I don’t ever seem to have had the time.”
Ed Simmonds was gripped by this revelation. “Seriously?” he asked. “You really mean that all you do is work?”
“I’m afraid so,” I said. I wondered why I sounded so apologetic.
“That is absolutely amazing,” said Ed. “I mean—how old are you. I’m twenty-nine. You might be a year or two older, I imagine.”
“I’m thirty-four,” I said.
“Well, it’s not too late then. You need taking in hand, Wilberforce. I’m going to instruct you in the art of having a good time. You don’t mind, do you? It will be very good for you; and, apart from Eck, there isn’t anybody better than me for knowing about that sort of thing.”
“That’s what my friend at work says,” I told him. “He says I ought to have a social life.”
Ed started to laugh, and his laughter was so infectious that I began to laugh with him.
“A social life? Is that what it’s called? Don’t worry, Wilber-force, we’ll make sure you have a social life.”
He was still laughing when Catherine came into the room. My eyes left Ed without my willing them to, and turned to her.
“Dinner is served,” she said, giving a mock curtsey to Ed.
“That’s Horace’s job, you know,” Ed told her. “Union rules.”
§
The next morning Andy wandered into my office with two cups of coffee and handed one to me. As usual he sat on the corner of my desk.
He said, “We beat forecast again last month. About fifty thousand above budget profit.”
“Good.”
“Good? It’s bloody wonderful.”
“Well, yes, I suppose it is.”
He looked at me with curiosity. “Have you got a hangover?”
“No, you know I don’t drink.”
“Then what is it?”
I wished he would go away. I didn’t feel up to his banter this morning.
“Didn’t you enjoy your evening with your friends?” he persisted. What made Andy a good finance director was that he kept asking questions. I wished for once he would stop.
“On the contrary,” I said. “It was very pleasant.”
“Good,” said Andy. “It’s good for you to have a social life, Wilberforce, so long as it doesn’t get in the way of business. All play and no work, and all that sort of thing.”
I said nothing, waiting for him to go.
He looked at me again and said, “You met a girl, didn’t you?”
“Well, there was a girl there.”
“And did you manage to meet her? Or did you do that famous Wilberforce thing you do with our best customers sometimes, and pretend they are not in the same room as you?”
“I met her,” I admitted. “Look, I’ve got some work to do…”
“You met a girl.”
“Yes, someone else’s girlfriend, that’s all.”
He started to laugh. “Really, you shouldn’t be allowed out on your own,” he said. “You go out to dinner for the first time almost since I’ve known you, and you fall in love on your first outing.” He went on laughing and then stood up, crooning. “Wilberforce is in lurve…”
He left the room, thank God. I was not in love. He was talking absolute rubbish, winding me up for his own amusement, as he liked to do. I had liked Catherine. She was very amusing, and lively, and probably a good deal brighter than Ed. Why shouldn’t I like her? I put my head in my hands for a moment and shook it to clear from my mind the image of her laughing as we sat in the kitchen last night, the muscles moving in her throat. Out with the images of Catherine laughing, in with the software, I told my brain.
Only she had looked, as she sat there, like an angel.
§
The next weekend I drove out to Hartlepool Hall again. Ed had invited me to have a shooting lesson, on clay pigeons. It was part of his grand new scheme of Educating Wilberforce. I knew, or I thought I knew, that I represented a diversion for Ed. I was his project. He was going to teach me to shoot, or to fish, or to ride. He was going to take me racing. There was even a half-promise that I could go and stay at the end of August at the family’s other house in the county, Blubberwick Lodge, to watch a day’s grouse-shooting. I still could not really believe that there might be a simpler explanation: that Ed Simmonds actually enjoyed the company of someone so different from his usual circle, and that he wanted nothing more from me than my company.
When I drove to Hartlepool Hall I half-hoped Catherine Plender would be there, and I half-hoped that she would not. When I arrived at the house, and Horace took me through to meet Ed, it was soon clear that she was not. I felt a strong sense of disappointment. Ed took me out through the back quarters of the house, through stable yards, and coach yards, and down a path behind the kitchen gardens, beside a long brick wall with a lean-to structure running along it.
“This used to be our bakery,” said Ed. “I remember it was still going when I was a child. It was fuelled by coal from our drift mine. The bread was baked in here and the heat was used to heat up water, which was taken away in pipes to warm the peach house. The bread was like rock. If you dropped your slice of toast you were quite likely to break something with it. I was so relieved when they decided to pack it in and I was allowed to eat Mother’s Pride like everyone else.”
We came out past the bottom of the kitchen garden, and into a field that fell steeply away to a small stream at the bottom. At the top of a grassy bank stood a man beside a contraption I realised was a clay-pigeon trap.
“Morning, George,” said Ed. “This is Mr Wilberforce I told you about. I want you to help him a bit with his shooting.”
“Done it before, sir?” enquired George.
“No, it’s my first time,” I told him.
“Don’t worry, we’ll soon have you hitting clays just as
good as his lordship there.”
“Now then, George,” said Ed, “I’m not sure if you meant that as a compliment.”
The keeper grinned and then bent down to open a leather gun case that lay on the ground at his feet. He opened it up, took out the disassembled parts of a shotgun and quickly put the gun together. It was a thing of beauty: a walnut stock, silver chasings on the sidelock, and a number one in gold on the barrel, showing that it was one of a pair.
“Try that for size,” George suggested, and showed me how to fit the gun tight into my shoulder and how to swing with it on to an imaginary target.
“Don’t drop it, for heaven’s sake,” said Ed. “A pair of those guns costs about fifty thousand to replace.”
After a lecture about gun safety I was allowed to walk down the slope with Ed and try my luck at shooting clays. George the keeper sat on a seat behind the clay-pigeon trap at the top of the bank, protected from any inaccurate or careless shot of mine by a sheet of corrugated iron.
“Remember, Wilberforce,” said Ed: “blot the clay out with the end of the barrel as it comes over you, and fire, all at the same time.” Then he shouted, “Pull,” and two black discs sailed overhead and glided harmlessly into the trees beyond.
“Was I meant to shoot them?” I asked.
“Next time I shout, “Pull,” get your gun up to your shoulder and fire as soon as you like. Remember, you’ve got two barrels, one trigger for each.”
He shouted, “Pull,” again and before I knew what was happening I had fired two shots.
“What happened?” I asked.
“You powdered both of them,” said Ed ecstatically. “Well done! A right and a left first time you’ve ever shot. I can’t believe it. Did you see that, George?”
“He’s a natural, sir,” shouted George from the top of the bank.
For the next hour they made me fire at clay after clay. I missed some of them, but hit a few.
We walked back to the house, leaving George to pick up the empty cartridge cases and undamaged clays. The sky was brightening, there were patches of blue everywhere now, and the day was warm. The dew was nearly off the grass. I felt pleased I had done so well, and Ed was delighted by my newly acquired shooting skills.
“Well done, Wilberforce,” he said. “I tell you what we’ll do. If we’ve got any grouse this year, you shall come out to Blubberwick with us one day in August. You can watch how it all works and, if you’d like, we’ll give you a minder and you can try a few shots yourself.”
A little while later we parted, as Ed was going to Thirsk Races for lunch and the afternoon, and I was going back to the office. I thanked him again, and he replied by asking me to come to dinner the following week. “Eck’s coming,” he said, “and Annabel Gazebee. You’ll like Annabel. Oh, and Catherine, of course.”
I accepted. All of a sudden I had new friends, a new life. It felt very odd, but as I drove back to the office I decided it was a good feeling.
§
So began a long summer different from all the other summers I had ever known. That was the summer when I passed from being frozen in permanent adolescence, like some juvenile mammoth overtaken by the ice sheets, into a new state of being. As I thawed, new emotions overtook me, and new longings. Now, instead of begrudging time not spent in my office I began to count the hours, on those evenings when I had an invitation from one or other of my new friends, until I should be out of the office and once again driving up the little road that wound up the side of the hill. There were many such invitations. It seemed as if I spent every spare moment with people, no longer always on my own. Each time I went out to dinner, or to Sunday lunch, I met more and more new faces. I discovered after a while that there was an inner circle. Whether the circle had formed itself around Ed, or whether it had formed itself around Francis Black, I was not quite sure. The inner circle was Ed Simmonds himself, Francis Black, Annabel Gazebee, Catherine Plender and Eck Chetwode-Talbot. Sometimes we met at Eck’s large and rambling farmhouse, where Eck, who was a surprisingly good cook, entertained us. We dined several times at the Plenders’ house, Coalheugh.
Catherine’s parents were rather forbidding, but as they spent most of the year in Bermuda or Antibes, I only met them once that summer. One night we had kitchen supper with Francis, at his flat at the back of Caerlyon, and after supper went down to inspect the undercroft. It seemed fuller of wine and more impressive than I had remembered it. Most of all we lunched, dined or simply sat around and talked, at Hartlepool Hall. Maybe it was on the occasion that Ed first asked me to meet Annabel Gazebee that I had an odd conversation with Eck.
I was seated next to Annabel at dinner. She was a tall, angular girl with long brown hair, a sharp beak of a nose and a brittle manner of speech. She was easy enough to talk to, though. She seemed to find it fascinating that I went to an office every day and worked there.
“I think that’s so good,” she told me. “Such a good example to people like Eck and Ed, who do absolutely nothing all day long.”
“I’m very busy,” said Ed indignantly. “I’m going to be a steward at Kelso races next year.”
Annabel herself sat on a committee that raised money for the Red Cross and considered herself to be second to no one in the matter of being busy.
Another person joined us unexpectedly for dinner: a family friend of the Simmondses, the Earl of Shildon, whom I had heard Francis talk about. He had been visiting Ed’s father, who was unwell, and confined to his bedroom.
“He’s one of my trustees,” explained Ed, while we waited for Teddy Shildon to join us before dinner. “So I’ve got to be civil to him. Anyway, even though he’s only ten years younger than my pa, you’d never guess it to look at him. He’s great fun. You’ll like him, I know you will.”
We went into the library after dinner. Ed, Annabel, Catherine and Teddy Shildon were sitting at a table near the fire. Bridge had been proposed and rejected and instead they had begun to play a noisy game of racing demon. Eck refused to join in, saying that he hated cards, and I didn’t know how. Card games had not been on my foster-father’s list of acceptable entertainments.
“Mind if I help myself to one of your stogies, Ed?” asked Eck, reaching for the humidor as he spoke.
“Help yourself,” cried Ed; “you too, Wilberforce. Oh, Catherine, you cheat!”
Eck trimmed his cigar and lit it. “Let’s go outside,” he suggested. “It’s a warm enough night.”
At the far end of the library were double glass doors that led out on to a terrace. We went outside and seated ourselves on a stone balustrade that led the length of the terrace and looked out on to a corner of the lake and the dark woods beyond that girdled Hartlepool Hall. It was a green and pink dusk, and the moon was rising.
“Perfect evening,” said Eck, puffing on his cigar. Two bats skittered past, chasing insects in the twilight.
“Eck,” I said, “why does Francis look so sad all the time?” We had both been with Francis a few nights before.
“Does he?” asked Eck, in surprise. “Is that how he strikes you? Well, maybe you are right. We’re all so used to him that I don’t suppose we ever notice anything like that. I suppose he might well look sad. He’s had a disappointing life, in some ways.”
“In what way?” I asked.
“Well, Francis is very intelligent—much brighter than any of us. You know he’s my godfather, don’t you?”
“You said.”
“So I know him as well as I know anyone of that generation. He was born with brains and good looks; he inherited a good few acres and a decent-sized house. He’s ended up with next to nothing, and no one to leave it to. That’s why I think he might feel disappointed. Anyone would.”
“What happened?” I asked. Francis fascinated me. I wanted to know. I knew Eck loved talking about other people’s lives. I knew he would tell me almost anything.
“Francis was very wild when he was young. I think it was a reaction to his mother. She was very much the grande dame. M
y father once said she was the most frightening woman he had ever met. Francis’s own father was a brave soldier when he was in the army, but he used to creep about and keep out of trouble at home. Then Francis had the most horrendous falling-out with his mother.”
Eck paused, and puffed on his cigar until the end glowed an even red in the gloom. I said nothing. I wanted Eck to go on with the story.
“Francis fell head over heels in love with a girl who lived in one of the cottages and worked as a daily maid in the house. At first everyone thought Francis was just having a fling. But my father told me that it had been the real thing. Francis had absolutely fallen in love with the girl who did the ironing for his mother. Then it got worse. The girl became pregnant and, of course, Francis’s mother found out. She got the whole story out of her maid. She called Francis in, who said he was going to marry the girl. There was a huge shouting match.”
Eck paused to puff on his cigar again. It was very quiet outside. I could hear frogs croaking down by the lake, and a firefly went past.
“So Francis fell in love?”
“The one and only real passion of his life, as far as anyone knows,” agreed Eck. “Then he went away to London, and he got in with Johnny…well, with a whole lot of people you probably don’t know, who played cards for pretty high stakes at the Clermont and those sorts of places. Francis dropped a serious amount of money. I mean an enormous amount of money. He was playing with people who could afford to sit down and lose a hundred thousand in a night. Unfortunately, he couldn’t. Then his parents paid off his debts, which cost them a fortune, and sent him off travelling, to get him out of the way. When he came back he’d acquired an interest in wine. He’d been staying in Austria with a friend of his parents, Heinrich Carinthia, a sort of Hapsburg relation who’s a prince and owns vineyards all over the place. He still comes once a year to shoot at Blubberwick. Francis caught the wine bug from him. He started collecting wine around then, and he’s been at it ever since. It’s become rather an expensive obsession, in fact. He’s tried being a wine broker, and a wine merchant, and none of it has ever worked. Francis is simply completely uncommercial. He talks a good game. You would think he would be the world’s best wine salesman, to hear him. But if anyone knows more about buying dear and selling cheap than Francis does, I haven’t met them. Apart from the money he lost gambling, he’s lost another fortune speculating in wine. He can’t afford to buy proper wine any more. Now all he can do is buy the odd parcel of bin ends, from time to time. He’s cashed in just about every farm and house he inherited in order to stay in the game, except for Caerlyon, and even that’s on a long lease to Gateshead Council.”